


Unintended Consequences

by VWebb



Category: Naruto
Genre: Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 11:26:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20581736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VWebb/pseuds/VWebb
Summary: Madara and Hashirama should have thought it through a little better.  Expecting everything to go their way, just because they've gone back in time andknowwhat's going to happen, is maybe not a good idea.People don't just roll over andletyou control everything.





	Unintended Consequences

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Ripples](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19382323) by [Martesh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Martesh/pseuds/Martesh). 
  * Inspired by [Into these deep waters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19944841) by [coudric](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coudric/pseuds/coudric). 
  * Inspired by [The Rabbit in The Moon - Drabble's, Snippets, and One shot's](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20320768) by [Dhar_Sii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dhar_Sii/pseuds/Dhar_Sii). 

> Inspired by chapter 11 of 'The Rabbit in the Moon'.

The two stood on either side of the river staring at each other. It had been years, years between them, years of love and laughter, heartache and pain. Years since they had seen each other as anything other than adversaries. Years since they had seen their friend before anything else. Years since the faces staring at them had been so young.

He huffed and looked away.

“This is our second chance.”

“_I know!_”

“We can’t do it the same! It’ll just turn out the same as it was last time!”

“_I know!”_

_“Madara!_”

“_I know!_ What part of _‘I know’_, don’t you understand!”

“Then why are you…!”

“No!” Madara interrupted. “I’m not leaving them! They’re they whole reason I agreed to this!” Mangekyo sharigan swirled as he stared across at Hashirama. “If you want things to be so different this time, _you change!_”

The reply came several minutes later, “…fine.”

_

Tobirama looked down at the graves before him. It had been years, almost a decade, since he had lost Kawarama. Only a few years after that Itama had died as well. Even now, the pain of their deaths could knife through him at unexpected times. But it was Hashirama who had truly hurt him.

He remembered; he remembered finding Hashirama on the riverbank with Uchiha Madara. He remembered watching them for days and weeks as Madara made his brother laugh and smile, play the way he didn’t inside the compound. The way he didn’t with the only brother he had left. He also remembers sensing another presence one day; realizing that another Uchiha had now found them, the heirs of their two rival clans.

Tobirama wonders if that ‘betrayal’ is what had driven Hashirama away. That betrayal when he had realized that Hashirama’s refuge; the place he went to be with his friend was now known to more than just Tobirama. He wonders if he had just _told_ Hashirama that he had been following him and seen him with his friend and that it was no longer safe for him to go to the river…, if none of this would have happened. Tobirama knew it was useless to dwell on ‘what ifs’. He remembers deciding to tell Butsuma because he had _known_ that Hashirama wouldn’t listen to him. That Hashirama wouldn’t believe that Madara wouldn’t have had any more choice than Hashirama when he was ordered to set an ambush. He knows that he had made the only choice available to him at the time, knowing how stubborn and idealistic Hashirama was; knowing that he _saved his brother’s life_.

But still…. He wonders if that was the deciding moment that had led to everything that had happened afterwards.

Straightening from his crouch, Tobirama brushed a last gentle hand across the stones set in the ground over the final resting places of two of his brothers. Taking a step, he placed his hand on the tree Hashirama had grown to shade Kawarama’s and Itama’s grave and activated the seal he had carved into the bark. It was the last seal in this section of the compound, the last tree Hashirama had gown; the trap was now set.

Striding back to the center of the compound, Tobirama stopped in front of Butsuma. “It’s done.”

“Good.”

“Goodbye, Senju-sama.” Not giving the man who used to be his father a second glance, Tobirama strode over to the last of the clansmen who were coming with him. Griping onto Asmund’s ruff Tobirama nodded to Namio and Junpei as they gripped onto the ruff of their own Lynx. With a small release of chakra smoke Tobirama and his two companions disappeared; reverse summoned to the remote mountainous area the Lynx summons called home.

-

Tobirama looked around the camp at all that was left of his once powerful and numerous clan. Six years ago, before his brother had defected to the Uchiha, the Senju had numbered over 200. Half of that had been trained and active shinobi and kunoichi. Not all of them were heavy hitters, but there were enough support and medics that they were able to fully guard their lands even with teams gone to earn money from merchants and nobles in want of either protection from or attack on a rival, or any other mission they would be hired for.

Now, they had been reduced to this; a clan of children and the elderly, guarded by the few who were left that could fight. Tobirama swept bitter eyes over his reduced clan. He couldn’t help but feel that, if only Butsuma had not confined him to the compound, convinced that he would defect and follow his brother, then there would be more of his clansmen still here. That maybe they wouldn’t have had to leave their lands, leave their history and dead behind and run.

Oh, he knew in hindsight that Butsuma had been right to seal him in the compound. Tobirama didn’t like to admit it, but those first few years he _would_ have tried to follow Hashirama. Tried to speak with him, convince him to come back, plead with him. It was only the death of Tōka, bound by Hashirama’s vines as Uchiha Izuna killed her, that had caused him to abandon all hope of Hashirama coming back.

It was hard to acknowledge that; that Tōka’s death was so important to him. He _knew_ that Hashirama had contributed to the deaths of many of his clansmen. _Knew_ that it was Hashirama that had given the Uchiha patrol and trap information when he first left. Had shared strengths and weaknesses of his clansmen and their closest allies with the Uchiha; helping the Uchiha overwhelm and kill them. Had revealed safehouses and supply caches of both the Senju as well as their allies. Tobirama was ashamed that it had taken the death of Tōka to make him understand that Hashirama was never coming back. That he was the enemy now and would see them _all_ dead.

Tobirama thought back to the last time he had seen Hashirama on the other side of a battlefield. It was only the layers and layers of traps and seals that had allowed the few Senju left to escape. Hashirama had called after them, offered peace. Standing there, next to Madara the new Uchiha clan head, Hashirama had offered the Senju peace if they would just surrender. 

The Hatake had moved on, not willing to stay and fight, and Tobirama couldn’t blame them. They were only a couple of generations from their nomadic roots and had always been one of the smaller clans. The Hyuga had never been very close to the Senju, more neutral than allies. Hashirama’s actions, the former Senju Heir, turning to their historical rivals and sharing everything he knew, had them distancing themselves from the rest of the Senju clan. The strongest and best ally the Senju had left was the Uzumaki. But Hashirama knew that, and everything Hashirama knew, so too did the Uchiha. The Uchiha had made it impossible for the Uzumaki to support the Senju in any substantial way, only fast moving messengers and small teams able to pass through suddenly dangerous lands.

It was actually Hashirama’s interaction with the Uzumaki that had not only given the Senju their greatest defense, but also convinced Tobirama that he had gone mad.

Tobirama sighed as he looked over the beginnings of a new compound. It felt like they were at the end of the world here; so far from civilization and what they had known. Without the ability and willingness of the great cats and their help, it would have taken months for a healthy, fast moving group of shinobi to traverse the distance. Mt. Shirogawa was on the other side of the world from the Land of Fire, but even so, Tobirama had ensure that _no one_ knew where they were going. He didn’t trust Hashirama and the Uchiha not to chase them down, no matter how far they had to go to do so; not after their interactions with the Uzumaki.

Hashirama had just had his thirteenth birthday when he had disappeared from the clan, but he had already known for years that he was expected to marry a daughter of the Uzumaki main family. The choice was between three girls, all part of the main family, all of the appropriate age. But the Uzumaki were a fiery, unconventional family, and so had never specified. Leaving the girls and Hashirama to decide who among them were most suited. 

Years after Hashirama had defected he appeared, on the Island of Uzushio, trying to claim the clan head’s daughter Mito as his bride. He had claimed to still be a Senju, still be the next Senju clan head. That he was working with the Uchiha solely to promote peace between the two clans, to bring them together into one. It was to the Uzumaki that Hashirama explained his ‘great dream’; that the Uchiha and the Senju come together to build a clan village. To gather all the clans of Fire together and stop all the clan wars and fighting. When pressed Hashirama had tried to claim to not killing a single Senju. Possibly that was technically correct, yet holding a person trapped as someone else delivers the killing blow does not absolve you of their death.

Ashina, the Uzumaki clan head, had rejected Hashirama’s claim. And it was Hashirama’s violent response to this as he tried to steal Uzumaki Mito that had given Tobirama the greatest boon he could imagine. The Uzumaki had driven Hashirama and the Uchiha he had brought with him off. Ashina, himself, had admitted that it looked more like they had allowed themselves to be driven off the island. But that single action, Hashirama demanding Mito’s hand, had hardened the Uzumaki against him.

Turning, Tobirama walked over to where his wife was overseeing the fortification of their temporary camp. Reaching out, Tobirama ran a gentle hand over Mito’s shoulder and down her arm, “now we wait.” Leaning over Tobirama brushed a kiss against Mito’s brow as she turned to lean slightly against him; offering comfort.

“It will work. Father will send word when he hears something.”

“Yes. And Kota stayed behind to watch, make sure nothing goes wrong.” Tobirama swept his gaze over his clan. He was clan head now. He had never imagined before that day Hashirama disappeared that he would ever be clan head. He was supposed to be the soldier, the silent support, standing behind his strong brother. But this was his new reality and he had too much to do to dwell on what ‘should have been’. Squeezing Mito’s hand, he pressed another kiss to her lips before leaving to start helping Miho pull the granite from the earth for the foundations of their new compound.

They might have had to run, leave everything they couldn’t pull up and carry behind, but they couldn’t have asked for a better place to settle. Their new island was colder than they were used to, but it was entirely their own. No other humans lived there. And, with the short mountain range in the middle, they actually had about twice as much land as Uzushio, plenty of room to spread out and set down new roots.

-

Butsuma looked up from where he was braced against the stone pillar at the center of the compound. Looking around at the place he had grown up, killed and fought for, and was now going to die in, he ignored the approach of his eldest son and the Uchiha clan head. He could see, off to the left, Elder Hitome sitting against her own pillar. Feeling the chakra threads that had been attached to him he could feel Elder Gentaro and Kisuke at their own pillars to the East and South. Elder Kosabura in the West had already died, drained by the seals. 

The Uchiha had come over the wall instead of through the gates. Butsuma chuffed a slight laugh as he continued to drain his chakra into the seal matrix he and the Elders were charging. That would have been a supremely stupid thing to do just two days ago, the penalty for unauthorized people entering the compound not through one of the approved gates was an excruciating death. Tobirama and Mito’s seal work was not at all forgiving. But those seals had had to be deactivated. Every erg of energy needed to go into the seals Butsuma was charging. Not security seals that were no longer of any use.

“Father.”

“….” Butsuma just looked at Hashirama where he stood in front of him. He was held tightly on either side by Uchiha clan members. They had already searched him before Hashirama and Madara had approached.

Butsuma watched Hashirama look around in puzzlement. Butsuma leaned harder on the stone at his back not caring that he was letting Hashirama and the Uchiha see just how weak he was. Turning his head to take in the sight of the compound again, he tried to see it from Hashirama’s point of view. 

Hashirama hadn’t seen the compound in six years and the changes were many. Most of the houses and buildings had been picked over by Tobirama before he had left; going so far as to deconstruct many of the buildings, taking the materials with them to be rebuilt in their new home.

“Where is everyone?”

“I told you it was a trap, Hashirama.” 

Butsuma watched as the two started to debate.

“Yes. That’s what you said, but there’s only Father and four of the Elders _here_. That’s not much of a trap.”

“Except you know your demon of a brother was involved.” Madara was spinning slowly, sharigan eyes trying to see where the danger he knew was there would come from.

“Don’t call him that.”

“Hn. He’s even more tricky this time. It would be safer if he died.”

“That’s my little brother! And we need him! You know we’ve tried to recreate it all, but we just don’t remember it, all the little details. We need him, the way he thinks, he can do it again.” Hashirama was looking at Madara with expressive eyes, “only this time _it will be better_. It’s why we’ve _done_ all this!”

“….”

“Madara!”

“What!” Madara glared at Hashirama, “I agreed, didn’t I! It’s why we’re here.” 

Hashirama smiled at Madara before turning his attention back to his father. Smile fading from his face he took a good look at the Senju clan head where he had been silently watching them; leaning against that strange stone pillar that wasn’t supposed to be there. Butsuma was pale and sweating, leaning on that pillar like he would fall without the support. Hashirama started to frown, Butsuma was too passive, too calm with the Uchiha spreading throughout the Senju clan compound. The Senju clan head was still a powerful, strong fighter, just what kind of trap was this? He wasn’t even struggling against the two guards holding on to him. Was he the bait?

“Where is Tobirama? Where is my brother?”

Butsuma looked back at Hashirama as he stood in front of him, demanding things like he hadn’t led to the death of the Senju clan. Feeling the chakra drain he was only held up by the Uchiha clansmen holding onto him and the pillar he was propped against as he stared at his son. “Why? You left him behind.”

Hashirama frowned, hair swinging forward as he looked down at Butsuma. “I didn’t leave him. It wasn’t supposed to take this long.”

Butsuma sneered at Hashirama, “did you expect us to not fight back?”

“I asked for peace! I called for it!” Hashirama pointed in accusation at Butsuma, “you never wanted it! You were never willing to talk, to listen!”

“Hnf. Are you an Uchiha now?” Butsuma continued before Hashirama could do more than look confused. “Are you the Uchiha clan head? No. All you are is a traitor. You don’t have any authority, why would I listen to you? You have no honor, no loyalty. You’re nothing and your words mean nothing; they never will.”

Hashirama paled as Butsuma spoke. In the middle of stepping back in shock he changed direction to lunge forward, clamping his hand around Madara’s chakra covered fingers that were heading straight for Butsuma’s throat.

“Have a care how you speak!”

“No.” Butsuma turned his attention to the raging Madara. “I’ll say what I want to the traitor. All you can do is kill me faster and then you won’t have any answers.” 

Butsuma was actually finding this kind of funny. He was dying anyways; and he could see out of the corner of his eye the pallas cat stretched out under the front stairs leading to the clan head house. The clan head house was one of the few still recognizable buildings, and Butsuma could see the summon watching and listening, waiting to report everything that happened here. Nothing could change what was going to happen, everything had already been set in motion. And he didn’t actually have the answers Hashirama wanted. Tobirama had never shared the clan’s final destination. The description he heard could have been one of a million different places.

“That’s not all I can do!” Madara’s sharigan which had been spinning this entire time caught Butsuma’s gaze.

Butsuma looked into sharigan eyes with nothing more than the reflexive fear a lifetime of fighting Uchiha had left him with. For the first time in his life he was able to truly study an active sharigan, watch the little black tomoe spin around the pupil. He could feel the Uchiha’s chakra trying to latch onto his own; trying to catch in his chakra system and mind. But nothing happened. The Senju clan head’s chakra system was already tied, in its entirety, to the seal work he was charging. Elders Kosabura and Gentaro had already died, their chakra draining into the matrix. Elder Hitomi was unconscious and would be dead soon, he could feel it. All that was left was Elder Kisuke and Butsuma himself, and neither one would survive more than another hour at most. Nothing would change what was going to happen. It was much too late for that and Butsuma was glad. “That’s not going to work on me, Uchiha. There’s nothing there for you to catch on to.”

Madara opened his mouth to rage at the Senju sitting before him only to stop at the hand on his arm.

“Where. Is. My. Brother?”

Butsuma smirked tiredly, “not here.”

“Where is he! Where is the clan!”

“Why do you care? You left him behind without a thought.”

“He’s _my_ brother! He belongs with me!”

“Ah. Tobirama once thought so too.” Butsuma turned his gaze onto Hashiramam, watching his face. “Did you know I had to use the bridal cuffs to restrict him to the compound for the first couple of years after you left. He wanted to follow you. Try to bring you back. He would have done anything, begged on his knees, for you to come back.” Butsuma felt a kind of dark amusement at Hashirama’s pale staring. 

“I almost have to thank you for killing Tōka.”

Hashirama paled, “what?” he whispered. “Tōka’s dead?”

“You killed her yourself, traitor. Held her down so that one’s brother could take her head.” Butsuma’s chin jerked in Madara’s direction. The Uchiha clan head reached out to steady a swaying Hashirama. “I didn’t have to worry about Tobirama following you anymore after that. He never stopped studying seals and he’d been close, so close, to being able to remove the cuffs. But, well…, after that he knew, he knew that you’d kill us all if you had the chance.”

“What?”

“It was him,” Butsuma laughed internally at Hashirama’s pale shaking form. “Tobirama designed all our defenses. Created traps and seals, designed new jutsus, found new routes to the coast and the trading cities. Without him you would have been standing here years ago.” It was hard for Butsuma to admit that, but he had had to come to terms with the fact that they had been losing the war since the day his oldest son had gone to the other side. He was _proud_ of how long Tobirama had held Hashirama and the Uchiha off. _Proud_ of the fact Tobirama hadn’t let tradition, and the way things had always been done, to keep him from saving their clan. Even if it _had_ taken months of his own raging and fighting against Tobirama’s plan for him to come to that conclusion. Accusations of cowardice and giving up.

By this time both Hashirama and Madara were pale, staring at Butsuma.

“Where is Tobirama?” the question was quiet.

“Gone.”

“What?” this time the question came from Madara.

“You’ll never find him. He didn’t even tell _me_ where they were going. And I'm dying, it's not like I could tell anyone. He set his last defense and left.”

Madara was white by this point, staring at the obviously dying Senju clan head. Butsuma was hanging between his guards, not even able to support himself anymore, “what did he do?”

Butsuma stared at his first born. He had been so proud, at one time. So proud that one of _his_ son’s had manifested the mokuton. It hadn’t been seen for _years_ in the clan. In the thousand years since Ashura, the founder of their clan, mokuton hadn’t been seen in almost a dozen generations. The Senju had never had a bloodline, like the Uchiha. They didn’t focus as a clan on a single aspect. Instead each Senju found their own focus, their own path. It was that versatility that had allowed them to largely stay even with the Uchiha. There had been generations when the one of the clans had pulled ahead and seemed to be about to dominate the other only for the next generations to reverse it. It was the many styles, the many methods and patterns, the many aspects of shinobi power, all found in the Senju, that had kept the two clans equal when the Uchiha seemed to have such a natural advantage. Having one of the greatest of the Senju paths decide to join with the Uchiha…, it had thrown the balance off. Set the board in the Uchiha’s favor.

“We reject you, Hashirama. We repudiate you. You are expelled from the Senju, never to again call the Senju home. We strip you of your name and renounce all ties to you. May you wander forever homeless and clanless, never knowing peace.” Butsuma continued, keeping his attention on Hashirama where he stared at him white-faced; Madara and the other Uchiha’s gathered there gaping in shock. “Your ancestors no longer know you. Your family no longer see you.” As Butsuma continued to speak blood started to drip down from his lips, “with this blood spilled here today we take from you all ties to the Senju clan. We take from you our blood and our strength. We take from you the mokuton, the power of the Senju. Nevermore shall you prosper as our kin do, kinslayer.”

“WHAT!”

Butsuma suddenly found himself suspended from the Uchiha’s hand at his neck as Madara slammed him right out of the grips of his two Uchiha guards and into the pillar behind him. Butsuma grinned with bloody teeth, looking straight at the Uchiha clan head’s eyes as he said, “if he doesn’t want to be a Senju, then he doesn’t get to keep the Senju bloodline. It’s as simple as that.”

“What did you do?” Hashirama looked down at his hands before turning to the trees on the edge of the central clearing they were all standing in. Slowly, and with obvious effort, branches started to grow and twist. But it was obvious that Hashirama was having to struggle to do something that should have been nothing more than a thought.

Madara dropped Butsuma behind him as he went to stand next to Hashirama, watching in concern as Hashirama started to breath in jerks.

“It wasn’t me. It was Tobirama. I have no _idea_ how he did it and I couldn’t stop it if I wanted to. It’s too late now!”

They turned to look at the downed Senju.

“I was all for killing you. Just being done with it. But we’ve tried. You’ve always gotten away.” Butsuma lay on his back in the dirt and laughed lightly, staring at the sky. “There was no guarantee that we’d ever be able to kill you. You never seem to go anywhere without your _loyal friend_, and most of our most powerful fighters are dead. Tobirama was afraid to leave you behind. He was afraid you’d never stop hunting for them. But this…,” Butsuma turned his head to grin over at his traitorous son, “it didn’t matter where you were. You didn’t have to come here; you could have been in the middle of Wind Country and it wouldn’t matter! We used the connections of blood. Of chakra. We caste you out, never to return, and we take back our strength from the unworthy. I’m just glad I was able to see it happen.”

“_Thank you_ for coming to see me!” Butsuma’s laughing was cut off as Madara’s blade appeared in his eye.

Turning away from the body at his feet he put his hand on Hashirama’s shoulder. His friend was collapsed on his knees, staring at the trees across from them as the leaves rustled in the breeze. “Hashirama?”

Hashirama looked blankly ahead of him as he tried again and _again_ and _**again**_ to get those trees to grow. To get the branches to twist. To get the flowers on the ground to bloom. _Anything!_


End file.
